If you're getting sick of all the Christmas posts today, perhaps this will be a refreshing change of pace. Here is a great collection of adorable critters wearing yarmulkes. Of course, if you're tired of holiday posts in general, well, this won't help you much.
Yesterday, I posted Anthony Bordain's great Krampus Carol and now for those of you who want a terrifying reminder of the evil Christmas character inside your own home, you can always look to this great doll from Shove Mink of Croshame. While the link doesn't have any directions to make your own, the pictures can still provide you with a good starting point if you're already a skilled crocheter.
If you love Christmas animations, but start to feel like they're a little too old and cliched, here's the real reason why intrepid animators never update them to fit in with modern times.
If you're one of the many people who has become obsessed with Skyrim, but your wife keeps insisting that you put up the Christmas lights, what do you do? Why make Skyrim-themed lights of course!
Technically Festivus was yesterday, but in case you couldn't get the day off work and will be celebrating today, the link has more information on America's favorite television-inspired Christmas alternative.
While Christmas would certainly be a lot more simple with a Santa Dalek, I don't know that I'd consider it "saving" the holiday when they've exterminated everyone.
Did you know that Swedes love to watch Donald Duck on Christmas Eve or that Icelandic children are raised under the threat of a cruel Christmas cat? Mental Floss has a great article about Christmas traditions around the world, my favorite of which is the Gävle goat of Sweden:
In the Swedish town of Gävle, the goat became an effigy made of straw, built in the town square every year since 1966. At 13 meters tall, the Gävle Goat towers over the townspeople. The very first straw goat in 1966 was mysteriously set on fire at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Since then, the goat has been erected every year, and burned by unknown individuals about half of those years. Locals take sides, with some protecting the goat with schemes like soaking it in water, while others plot its demise.
I don't know about you guys, but I want to be on a goat protection or destruction team next year! Link
Cats get a bad rap for not getting in to the the holiday spirit, but plenty of felines do have a soft spot for the holiday. In fact, BuzzFeed has a great collection of pictures of kitties celebrating Christmas. From cats climbing Christmas trees to kittens playing with presents, the pictures are all simply adorable.
The Addis family loves Legos...a lot. As in, this 100,000 brick Santa Dalek isn't their only massive Christmas creation. Every year they make an equally impressive creation ranging from giant nutcrackers to mail boxes to angels. This year's Dalek is certainly my personal favorite, but the rest are definitely worth a look.
I'm not sure how many No Reservations fans we have here at Neatorama, but if you caught Bordain's Christmas special, you'll not that this animation was lacking from the final cut. That's because executives found it a bit too creepy. Personally, I found the Samantha Brown scene to be far, far more terrifying than this animation, but she gives me the creeps anyway.
I would love having one of these in my house except that I couldn't help but feel like I was counting down the days to my own EXTERMINATion rather than Christmas.
While that headline could be used for an article about modern-day Scrooges, I meant it quite literally. This fat kitty hates being dressed as Santa and its reactions are quite funny.
Just like humans, when an animal loses a leg or other important body part, a prosthetic can mean the difference between living a normal life and struggling on a day to day basis. Here are ten stories of animals that suffered loss and then learned to live with a new adaptation to their body.
While some people criticize the efforts put into these prosthetics, particularly in species that are not under threat of extinction, it is important to realize that these developments could help save a critical breeding member of an endangered species one day. Additionally, many of these techniques are brand new and by testing them on animals, researchers are developing useful insights to see if they may one day work on humans. If you end up losing a body part and get a bionic replacement twenty years from now, you might just have a cat or dog to thank for your top-of-the-line prosthetic.
Oscar lost his two rear legs in an accident with a combine harvester. After losing so much blood, his owners were told to expect the worst, but even after he survived the ordeal, their vet warned that cats rarely live happy lives with only two legs. Fortunately, he referred Oscars owners, Kate Allen and Mike Nolan to a veterinary surgeon who specializes in state-of-the-art animal medicine.
After looking at Oscar’s situation, Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick agreed to take on the new patient, surgically fitting him with implants that can eventually be attached to prosthetic paws. The surgery makes Oscar a notable kitty as he is the first cat to ever have prosthetic paws.
While the process was a success, Oscar’s paws haven’t yet been perfected for outdoor use. He has been made to be a house cat for the rest of his life, but really…that’s not all that bad now is it, especially when you consider how he was injured in the first place.
Storm the Dog
The first animal to receive such treatment though was Storm, a Belgian Sheperd, who lost his paw after it became infected with a tumor. The same vet that would later provide Oscar with his bionic paws, Noel Fitzpatrick, was the first to offer this service to any animal and Storm was the perfect candidate. Fitzpatrick says that he hopes his developments can eventually be used to help soldiers returning from Iraq and victims of the July 7th bombings in London.
Earlier this year, Naki’o became the first dog in the world to be fitted with a full set of bionic paws from Orthopets, a leader in the pet prosthetics industry. Far from just helping him walk easier, the paws are so well attached that he can now run and swim just as he did before the accident. Naki’o lost his paws due to severe frostbite after his previous owners abandoned him to fend for himself throughout the freezing winter in Nebraska. Despite the fact that the poor pup had to crawl on his stomach to move, he still found a loving adoptive family who worked tirelessly to raise the money to get Naki’o the prosthetics he desperately needed. Their efforts paid off as Naki’o is now thrilled to have his bionic paws and is eager to run, jump and fetch with his new family.
